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航运企业无法抗拒中墨航线的诱惑

2024-05-24 09:34阅读:
航运企业无法抗拒中墨航线的诱惑
墨西哥取代中国成为对美国的最大出口国,这种现实正在全球供应链和物流中产生连锁反应。在对墨港口需求增加和这些港口业务激增的刺激下,最近航运企业也在竞相采取行动。
随着向这个拉美国家运送机械、汽车零部件和电子产品的跨太平洋海上航线变得越来越繁忙,本月至少有3家航运公司加入其中。5月6日,香港航运企业东方海外开通一条新航线,其中包括从青岛到墨西北部港口恩塞纳达的航段,然后将继续驶往位于墨西南部的曼萨尼约,这是该国集装箱运输量最大的港口。上周,国际海运巨头法国达飞集团和瑞士地中海航运公司开通另外两条航线。二者都将中国与墨西哥繁忙的太平洋港口连接起来。
现在,墨西哥取代中国成为美国最大的进口来源国,随着美国对中国商品进一步提高关税,中墨之间的海运量正在反弹。墨政府数据显示,今年1月至3月,墨港口每月的集装箱运输量不断创下纪录。第一季度运输量高达20%的增长有望达到至少10年来的最高水平。因此,船舶运营企业正竞相为中墨之间的航运服务投入新运力,希望从不断增长的集装箱运输量中多分得一杯羹。“这可能是目前地球上增长最快的贸易。”货运跟踪与分析企业Xeneta的首席分析师彼得·桑德写道。
或许,墨西哥从中国进口商品,再不增值地将它们出口到美国,这之间的直接通道已经被打开,而这会破坏拜登总统阻止美国进口中国便宜商品的目标。例如,在墨西哥激励中国车企在该国开展业务后,美国对墨施压,要求后者冷落中国车企。
但航运企业不必在乎。无论是汽车和个人电脑零件进入墨境内接受最简单的组装,还是当地工厂确实正在取代中国成为生产中心,制造商仍然必须将大量商品运到这个国家。其中大部分来自亚洲,尤其是世界第二大经济体中国。
即使越来越多的美国人驾驶在墨西哥制造的汽车、使用墨制造的智能手机交流,或坐
在墨制造的家具上,相关材料和零部件仍将来自中国。全球航运企业一船一船地将它们运到墨西哥。
Shippers can't resist the lure of China-Mexico trade
By TIM CULPAN
MEXICO’s replacement of China as the largest exporter to the United States is having a ripple effect through global supply chains and logistics.
Shipping companies are the latest to join the fray, spurred by increased demand and booming activity at Mexican ports.
At least three carriers this month added to the already burgeoning trans-Pacific sea lanes that deliver machinery, auto parts and electronics to the Latin American nation.
On May 6, Orient Overseas Container Line Ltd launched a new route that includes an express leg from eastern China’s Qingdao to Ensenada on northern Mexico’s Pacific coast.
The journey then moves on to Manzanillo in the country’s southwest, Mexico’s largest port by container movements.
Two further routes were inaugurated last week by Marseille-based CMA CGM and Switzerland’s MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co. Both fixtures connect China to Mexico’s busy Pacific ports.
There are concerns that escalating US tariffs on Chinese-made goods – including doubling rates on semiconductors and a jump to 102.5% on electric vehicles – are forcing imports to go via Mexico merely as a way to relabel their origin.
Under this scenario, little value is added to products before they’re shipped north as “Made in Mexico.”
Ocean-freight transport between the two nations jumped in 2022, according to the United Nations’ Comtrade Database, as manufacturers shifted more final production to the United States’s southern neighbour amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Yet that figure, measured in US dollars, barely budged last year as global trade slowed.
Now that Mexico has overtaken China as the largest source of imports into the United States, and with Washington further raising tariffs on Chinese goods, traffic is on the rebound.
Container movements at Mexican ports posted records for each of January through March this year, according to Mexican government data.
A 20% jump in the first quarter puts the country on track for the highest level in at least a decade.
As a a result, ship operators are rushing new capacity into service between China and Mexico to take advantage of the rising container traffic.
“It is probably the fastest growing trade on planet Earth right now,” Peter Sand, chief analyst at Oslo-based Xeneta which tracks and analyses global sea and air freight, wrote in a March blog post.
The impact of that spike in activity was already starting to show in January, with the Pacific ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas both facing bottlenecks, industry publication The Load Star reported.
In April, rates from Asia to Mexico jumped 57% month-on-month to an average US$3,304 per 40-foot container, according to Eternity Group Mexico’s EAX Index, the first time since last May this figure passed US$3,000.
These costs are being exported directly to the United States, with Fitch Ratings estimating that higher shipping prices may add as much as 0.4 percentage points to core inflation this year.
A direct path between Mexican imports from China and non-value-add exports to the United States may have opened up, undermining President Joe Biden’s goal of stemming cheap Chinese imports to the United States.
Washington, for example, has pressured Mexico to give Chinese automakers a cold shoulder after previously offering incentives to set up operations there.
The reason, according to United States officials, is that trade deals with Canada and Mexico weren’t meant to offer a backdoor to China.
But shippers needn’t care. Whether half-finished cars and disassembled PCs are entering Mexico for minimal assembly work, or local factories truly are replacing China as a production hub, manufacturers must still bring tonnes of goods into the country.
Most of this comes from Asia, notably the world’s second-largest economy.
Even if Americans increasingly drive Mexican-made cars, talk on Mexican-made smartphones and sit on Mexican-made furniture, the materials and components will still come from China.
And global shipping companies will be hauling it there by the boat load. — Bloomberg

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